WHITEPAPER VIZURY 2013

Transcription

1 WHITEPAPER VIZURY 2013

2 ABSTRACT Most marketing solutions at the disposal of CMOs are not designed specifically for their respective industries. Brand teams help bring in such industry specificity through their knowledge and experience. Retargeting, a relatively new offering in the digital space, offers several opportunities where domain knowledge can help build a better solution for the marketer. This whitepaper establishes differences in consumer behaviour in every industry and thus the importance of an industry driven retargeting strategy and solution over the one-size-fits-all approach. The key takeaways for the reader will include: Fine differences in customer profiles and purchase behaviour across industries such as ecommerce, travel, hospitality, etc. The importance of ensuring that the retargeting strategy is insync with the brand s marketing strategy and calendar. How data collection and analysis can be different for retargeting campaigns in every industry. Impact of industry aspects on Real-Time Bidding (RTB) and banner recommendations. The paper derives its inputs from consumer research and learnings from Vizury s industry specific retargeting campaigns across the globe. 2 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

3 INTRODUCTION Marketers in most organizations bring a deep understanding of their industry to the office. Having worked several years in the same industry, they understand the nuances of user behaviour, purchase cycles, and influencing factors, and build these into their marketing strategy. However, when marketing solutions are built for these marketers, they rarely develop industry roots, providing the latter mostly with a generic template approach which they must optimize for best results based on their skills and that of their creative agency. In such a scenario, marketers must choose to make investments in some solutions that deliver something custom-built for them as opposed to solutions of any colour as long as it is black. A key word here is some -marketers cannot demand that an industry specific search marketing tool be provided, but then there are areas where a demand for a custom solution will be easier to meet. In this whitepaper we show marketers how a creative dynamic retargeting solution can have industry specificity built into its very ethos so much so that every stage of the retargeting campaign is custom-built for the industry in which the brand operates. WHAT IS DYNAMIC CREATIVE RETARGETING? R esearch suggests upto 98% of a website s first time users drop off without converting i.e. buying or signing up. These are terrible odds to work with almost at par with the success rate of a door-to-door salesman. Even JK Rowling fared better with getting Harry Potter published (see image)! Retargeting helps you reach out to these 98% users who are in-market for your products (that s why they visited your site) and are aware of your business (thanks to your digital marketing investments). Dynamic creative retargeting utlizes the user s browsing patterns and other data elements to show highly relevant display ads to them in order to convert them into the brand s customers. 3 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

4 INDUSTRY-DRIVEN RETARGETING: THE NEED The question we have often asked ourselves as marketers is who is my buyer? Analysis of user data leads marketers to better understand their audience and target them appropriately. What results do retargeting studies reveal? Here s an infographic which reveals very interesting industry-specific trends in online purchase behaviour: THE MOST VALUABLE USER SEGMENT ECOMMERCE APPARELS ECOMMERCE COSMETICS > ECOMMERCE 95% women ] USER AGE (in years) mostly from TIER 1 cities > NATURE OF THE USER PRICE CONSCIOUS but limited flexibility on DATE/TIMINGS PRICE CONSCIOUS and focused on USER REVIEWS LOW PRODUCT/BRAND AFFINITY BUT HIGH WEBSITE AFFINITY HIGH BRAND AFFINITY & REPEAT PURCHASE potential VERY HIGH BRAND AFFINITY APPARELS COSMETICS logical grouping of products IN RETARGETING ADS for CROSS/UP SELL- APPARELS COSMETICS HOTEL CUSTOMERS PROVIDE OTHER FLIGHT OPTIONS WITHIN FLIGHT CUSTOMERS PROVIDE OTHER HOTEL OPTIONS WITH SIMILAR PRODUCTS OF MATCHING COLOURS PRODUCTS IN THE SAME PRICE RANGE PRODUCTS OF THE SAME CATEGORY LOCATION RATING TARIFF marketing strategy AND calendar APPARELSCOSMETICS SEASONAL SALES HOLIDAY BASED OFFERS 2 MAJOR SALES PER YEAR SALES PEAK SEASONAL PRODUCTS for FLAT-RATE DISCOUNTS DESTINATION BASED MARKETING FESTIVAL/WEDDING ORIENTED SEP-NOV & JAN-FEB ALIGNED WITH WOMEN-ORIENTED DAYS Mothers Day 4 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

5 BROWSing BEHAVIOUR OF RETARGETED USERS Before purchase (average page visits and sessions) 8 page visits in 10 page visits in 3 SESSIONS APPARELS 2 SESSIONS 2 page visits in 1 SESSION COSMETICS 34 page visits (online window shopping) in 3 page visits in 4 SESSIONS FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE RETARGETED USERS Buying Decision 2 SESSIONS BEST PRICES PRICE PRICE BRAND STORE AVAILABILITY DISCOUNTS USER REVIEWS SIZE TRUST PRICE 31 TIME & DATE PHOTOS BEST SELLERS SAFETY BRAND APPARELS COSMETICS TIME to PURCHASE (TIME BETWEEN FIRST VISIT & PURCHASE) PERCENTAGE OF RETARGETED USERS WHO CONVERT APPARELS COSMETICS 10% 2 DAYS 1 DAY 5 HOURS 5 MINUTES 9 MINUTES 50% 5 DAYS 2 DAYS 18 DAYS 32 MINUTES 6 DAYS 75% 11 DAYS 5 DAYS 52 DAYS 10 HOURS 50 DAYS 90% 27 DAYS 9 DAYS 68 DAYS 5 DAYS 62 DAYS FREQUENCY OF PURCHASE WITHIN 3 MONTHS (NO. OF TIMES) 54% 26% 17% 3% >3 50% 1 39% 9% 2% 2 3 >3 APPARELS 87% 1 9% 2% 2% 2 3 >3 82% 1 12% 2 4% 3 2% >3 COSMETICS 82% 1 15% 2 2% 1% 3 >3 5 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

6 INDUSTRY-DRIVEN RETARGETING: THE APPROACH Retargeting solutions offer different levels of campaign customizations to the advertiser. While the self-serve solutions offer limited capabilities in this regard (where the advertiser or the representative agency must make all the customizations), others offer a more managed services approach to campaigns (thereby performing customization on behalf of the advertiser). Retargeting as a discipline allows several distinct stages at which industry-specialization can be developed. These stages include: 1. CAMPAIGN STRATEGY: Like any other marketing campaign, it is important that the retargeting campaign works in close conjunction with the brand s marketing strategy and calendar. 2. DATA COLLECTION: In this stage user data and product data are collected in order to understand users and their needs. 3. REAL-TIME BIDDING: Here the vendor bids for the user s impression based on an intelligent assessment of its value to the advertiser. 4. PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION LOGIC: Dynamic ads are built and displayed in real-time based on a combination of several algorithms which are known to deliver maximum click-through. 5.OTHER BANNER FEATURES: Features that help mimic the buying experience on the brand website also help the engagement and conversions on banners. STEP ONE CAMPAIGN STRATEGY Yes, retargeting campaigns do have many goals other than pure sales push. And very often these goals are found to be aligned to the advertiser s industry. Also, like any other marketing campaign, a retargeting campaign also needs to be closely aligned with the business strategy and marketing calendar of the advertiser. For example, the differences between an airline advertiser and an OTA (Online Travel Agency) advertiser are shown below: RETARGETING GOALS MARKETING CALENDAR INDUSTRY AIRLINE Maximize sales on high margin routes Treat international and domestic flyers differently Route specific sales Limited period across-the-board discounts Offers for business flyers OTA Maximize website signups and holiday package sales Promote cross selling of flights and hotels Holiday specific offer and sales Offers of specific hotel chains 6 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

7 Similar differences can be seen within ecommerce sub-categories as well: RETARGETING GOALS INDUSTRY ECOMMERCE- APPAREL Reach and convert maximum portion of website users Maximize sales across brands ECOMMERCE-MULTI CATEGORY Treat user segments distinctly based on product category Increase RoI on ad spend and cross-sell MARKETING CALENDAR Offers on brands New brand additions New season launch End of season sales Regular deals (e.g. deal of the day) across categories Category specific sales Holiday sales How Vizury targeted Rio flyers for annual Carnival For one of the leading OTAs in Brazil, Vizury helped increase sales of flights and hotels for Rio Carnival-bound flyers by 15%. Vizury s website retargeting solution, Web- Convert, helped retarget users who used the OTA website to search for international return tickets to Rio close to the carnival dates but dropped off the website without making a purchase. As an integral part of the OTA s marketing calendar, Vizury helped provide an additional sales uplift with its Carnival themed banners that attracted 4X clicks compared to the OTA s regular display ads. 7 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

8 STEP TWO DATA COLLECTION Retargeting solutions create and use two types of data stores to run campaigns. Product information is collected from the advertiser website using pushed or pulled data feeds and user information is drawn from tags when the user visits the advertiser website and drops off. The parameters stored and used, as well as the frequency at which the data is refreshed can vary by industry. As an example the date of travel is a key element in the users browsing behaviour for flights whereas in ecommerce, the category and subcategory of products viewed hold more importance. The example is further described in the table below: USER DATA ELEMENTS STORED PRODUCT DATA ELEMENTS STORED FREQUENCY OF UPDATES TO PRODUCT DATA INDUSTRY Date of travel One way vs. return Route Number of passengers (adults and children) Routes Airline options Prices and discounts Calendar Driven by price and availability - Much more frequently than ecommerce as flight inventory and prices change very frequently especially on busy routes and festivals. ECOMMERCE- APPAREL Product(s) seen Product category Point of exit (search vs. product vs. shopping cart page) Number of products seen Product name Description Image Price Category and sub category Driven by availability of product, and its size and colour variants: Based on the rate of at which the inventory of the category / subcategory get exhausted. Prices are more stable than flights so frequency of refresh is lesser than flights. Building real-time product data stores In many circumstances, Vizury found the frequency at which advertisers shared product feeds was lesser than the rate at which product information was updated. As a result, banners would provide inaccurate information to users about price or availability of products. To make product data stores updates more real-time, Vizury used its page tags to update product information. Now every time a user visited a product page on the advertiser website, Vizury s page tag passed user as well as basic product information from the page. These Autofeeds did not require any efforts from the advertiser and made the product information and by correlation, the dynamic ads, accurate. 8 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

9 STEP THREE REAL-TIME BIDDING Every industry uses a variety of parameters to identify potentially high-value customers. As in display networks based on Real-Tim Bidding (RTB), retargeting also utilizes these parameters to determine the exact value of an impression. After all a marketer would want to invest only on the impressions that have a higher propensity to click per view and also buy per click. The bid value is also dependent on some advertiser and publisher rules. The industry based differences in these parameters which determine the bid value are shown below: INDUSTRY HIGH BID First 3 days after dropping off User has bought an airline ticket previously High margin route Date of travel close to visit date LOW BID After day 3 from dropping off the search results page Low margin routes First time user Date of travel > 1month from visit date ECOMMERCE-APPAREL User saw pages on watches and shoes Within 15 days from dropping off Watches seen belong to top 10 selling products on the site Visited 2 pages on ties After 15 days from dropping off No ties in top selling categories Non RTB but industryspecific publisher On request from an Australian fashion retailer, Vizury added a fashion blog as one of its key publisher inventory sites for the advertiser s campaign. The publisher provided fashion tips for women and was found to deliver 20% higher CTRs than any of the advertiser s other display inventory. Often in retargeting, local, non-rtb inventory perform better based on industry specificity of its content and popularity among the local buyers. 9 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

10 Is collaborative filtering enough? STEP FOUR PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION LOGIC Retargeting banners often work best when a combination of recommendations or choices are provided to the user. After all, who wouldn t like to be spoilt-for-choice even on a banner? However the ways in which one recommends products are also specific for every industry. Here are some examples: Ecommerce -Apparel: 6 or 8 products from related categories work better than 4 products from the same category Providing brand recommendations can often work better than product recommendations esp. for brand conscious buyers e.g. luxury apparel brands Ecommerce-Cosmetics: Recommendations like People who bought this also viewed increase click through Top 10 most viewed or bought products are favoured by users Flights: Flight recommendations from +-2 days at a lower price point increase conversion Amazon has been one of the world s pioneers in the website based recommendation technique, popularly called collaborative filtering. However, in the world of dynamic retargeting ads, are product recommendations based on collaborative filtering enough in isolation? Vizury Data Scientists discovered that using a combination of some collaborative filtering techniques along with other algorithms such as view-buy associations led to higher conversions among users of some industries. To know more us at datascience@vizury.com Size does matter STEP FIVE OTHER BANNER FEATURES Most marketers like banners that replicate actual website functionality on them. These banners often also provide higher conversions for advertisers. Some examples of useful banner features across industries are shown below: INDUSTRY E Commerce Travel Hotel Group Buying Classifieds BANNER FEATURE/CONTENT User Ratings Time Clock Product image/ Feature focus Multi date option Festival specific banners Date based search Search parameters used Does the size of a banner have any bearing on clicks and conversion rates? Our research indicates there maybe something in it. In some geographies, for Ecommerce campaigns the highest conversion rates (even if on a lower inventory base) came from banners of size 486X60 whereas for flights the best converting banner size was 300X250, for hotels 200X200, and for group buying 250X250. There s a lot more that can be impacted through the banners size, colour, image size, etc. 10 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

11 CONCLUSION Customers and online purchase cycles in every industry can be significantly different. A retargeting campaign is successful when the advertiser is able to target the best set of its target audience with the most pertinent content and recommendations. To achieve this, marketers must seek solutions that are customized for them and their industry. These customizations have to begin at the strategy level and then permeate through every aspect of the retargeting campaign. As we head towards a future where the customer s Life-Time Value (LTV) has to be precisely measured and maximized, the role of industry specific marketing products and services will be even more relevant. And when the CMO demands better results from solutions offered to him, customer conversions led by an industry-driven retargeting solution will hit the spot. 11 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING

12 ABOUT VIZURY We love the internet. Next to the wheel, it is considered one of the greatest human inventions that helps bring people closer. At Vizury, we help bring brands closer to online markets and capture not just eyeballs, but also their attention and imagination. Our display personalization solutions allow brands to optimize their targeting and retargeting campaigns and spend. Established in 2008, we work with some of the best known brands in 27 countries across industries such as travel & hospitality, ecommerce, healthcare, automobile, and classifieds. With presence in Bangalore, Beijing, Dubai, Jakarta, Sao Paolo, Singapore, Sydney, and Taiwan, we are one of the most widely networked Indian startups. Say hello to us at 12 INDUSTRY DRIVEN RETARGETING